It’s still January but it looks like we’ve already gotten one of the most important films of the year in Mukkabaaz. Helmed by Anurag Kashyap, this tale of a boxer named Shravan, played to perfection by Vineet Kumar Singh, deals with politics on multiple levels, whether it’s in sports or of caste. Completely the holy trinity of talent in this project is Zoya Hussain, who plays Sunaina in the film.

Sunaina is mute but she is quite vocal. Despite being from a deeply patriarchal and conservative family, she is headstrong and defiant. She plays Shravan’s love interest, but her character has depth a definite arc. While working in the film, it didn’t escape Zoya how relevant the film is in current times. “I definitely felt a sense of responsibility because my character is mute for a reason. She wasn’t some token girl in the film, and she wouldn’t have been even if she weren’t mute. On top of that, they made her mute to make a point, and even while casting they wanted someone who also believes in the same things,” she tells us.

A still from the film | Image source

And what are those things? “You know there is this whole ‘feminazi’ term that is thrown around and abused, but you know the fact of the matter is that even if we make every single thing a feminist issue, it’s still not enough. You’re at a loss for words to describe how bad things are for women,” she exclaims.

Zoya grew up in Delhi, where the default for women is fight mode. She explains, “In Delhi, the muscle memory becomes that you’re cautious all the time. It’s like a thing, and unless you’re working or something like that, you don’t leave the house alone once it’s dark. As much as possible, don’t use public transport. And first, it was like, ‘akele mat jao’, then it was ‘go with a girl friend’, then it became ‘go out with your guy friend’, and now it’s a group.”

But now that she has moved to Mumbai, things are completely different. “I’m sure there are incidents here as well, but it’s different and also there are so many people on the road all the time. If someone does kinda hassle you, though it’s rare, people will help you out. People are quite helpful in general. And it’s not unlearning, it’s quite automatic. Once you leave Delhi, it’s like freedom. It’s like going with the flow,” she says.

She sounds fairly informed about the goings-on in the world currently, but did she learn something new about the state of women in our country while prepping for the film? She says, “I generally like to keep my eyes and ears open. My background is in theatre, and if you are any kind of a creative person, if you paint or you dance or you write, you are a little more in touch with what is happening in and around you, whether it’s yourself or current affairs. So there was nothing that shocked me because I knew most of the stuff.”

Photographer: Shivaji Sen

Another remarkable thing about the character she played was that she wasn’t airbrushed. She looked very much like a young woman who has been born and brought up in Bareilly. But that’s not always the case in Bollywood, and she knows that. “I, of course, want to look my best but nobody is flawless. We all have stretch marks and pimples and cellulite and hairfall and all of that. Thinking otherwise is really unrealistic. At least in most parts of the world, if somebody is super botox-ed or uses fillers, at least you know. But here the general public doesn’t even know. They just think that people wake up like this. Which is not true. So they should know that behind somebody stepping out like that, there is a lot that goes in, extensions and all kinds of things. Very few people have naturally amazing hair and skin. Not everybody is like that and that’s fine. Wanting to look your best in one thing but having unrealistic expectations is a whole other thing. It makes you have a weird kind of body image and a weird perception of yourself.”

Zoya spent a considerable amount of time training with sign language expert Sangeeta Gala, learning everything she can about deaf culture. She says, “I didn’t want to offend anybody in the deaf and mute community. My teacher Sangeeta is deaf herself. She works with a lot of kids, eight and nine-year-olds, who have not had any sense of language growing up. It really hinders your cognitive development. It’s not a joke yaar, it’s their life. People actually go through these things.”

She adds, “And learning about these kids does something to you. Sangeeta works with some lawyers also, so there are a lot of little boys and girls who have been raped and molested and they have no idea how to even express that.” So now she helps Sangeeta in whatever way she can every chance she gets. “She’s an amazing woman and she is very much like my character from the film,” Zoya gushes about her teacher.

Photographer: Shivaji Sen

Mukkabaaz is Zoya’s first Hindi film, but she’s done theatre and three indie English films before that. From here on, she doesn’t want to plan her Bollywood career. “This is a natural progression for me. The work I have gotten because of Mukkabaaz is also good films with good parts. I’m not some random replaceable person so I like that,” she says.

And if this 20-minute conversation is anything to go by, she is certainly not replaceable in the industry.

Cover image by Shivaji Sen